


need a partner in crime 'til you find who you love

by VerboseWordsmith



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Companionable Snark, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Pre-Canon, Undercover as a Couple, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6017074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerboseWordsmith/pseuds/VerboseWordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rebecca's latest assignment sounds like a nice, easy investigation into some black market alchemy books. Then she finds out she's assisting Riza, which is great! Riza's the best and the military is basically going to pay Rebecca to hang out with her best friend. Best assignment ever, right?</p>
<p>But somewhere between the first mission briefing and their first reconnaissance run, someone decides they need to go undercover as a couple. What's a girl with a long-term crush, half a dozen hidden weapons, and a bad guy to stop going to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	need a partner in crime 'til you find who you love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Romantic Evening" prompt for FMA Femslash Week.
> 
> I owe [Xyriath](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath) SO MANY THANKS! You guys, she is the absolute best and this fic would be a mess without her.

"You need to kiss me," Riza murmured in Rebecca's ear. "In about forty seconds."

"What?" Rebecca hissed, her hand tightening on Riza's hip in surprise.

"Fine," Riza said, still in Rebecca's ear. She leaned in closer and Rebecca shivered as Riza's breath ghosted over the sensitive shell of her ear. "I'll kiss you. Make sure you kiss back."

"With tongue?" Rebecca aimed for sarcastic, but her voice was probably a little too high right this second to pull it off. "Or can we keep it chaste?"

Riza's hand, which had been drifting distractingly near the small of Rebecca's back, slipped under Rebecca's shirt and pinched her. Rebecca squeaked and Riza made an amused sound that was annoyingly close to a snicker. Riza buried her face in Rebecca's shoulder and she _knew_ it was so no one would see Riza's evil grin.

Everyone _thought_ Riza Hawkeye was always serious and wouldn't recognize a sense of humor if it tap danced in front of her waving a flag, but Rebecca knew better. Riza was secretly benevolently evil, with a wicked sense of humor.

And, it turns out, wicked with her tongue if the way she kissed was any indication.

Riza broke the kiss suddenly, half-spinning Rebecca around and dragging her down the street by the hand.

"Um?" Rebecca stumbled a little to keep up with Riza. Rebecca was actually a little taller, but hardly anyone realized it; half the time Rebecca forgot that fact. Even under normal circumstances, Rebecca had to walk a little faster or take slightly longer strides to keep up with her, and now? Riza had a head start and most of an arm length on her—and Rebecca was uncharacteristically in heels for this mission, throwing her further off balance.

"Riza, hey! Riza! Slow down half a second, jeez." Rebecca yanked her arm and managed to pull Riza back just long enough to catch up and match her brisk pace. "Honestly, you can't just kiss and run, I know Mustang taught you to treat girls better than that."

"I believe that I'm the one who taught him that, actually," Riza said dryly, still guiding Rebecca down the busy street. Rebecca couldn't see Riza rolling her eyes, but she didn't really need to. They'd known each other for the better part of a decade now and this wasn't their first undercover mission together. This was how missions went: Rebecca made filthy comments and had a slightly sarcastic running commentary, Riza rolled her eyes and made wry observations, together they kicked ass and saved the day.

Their current mission wasn't going to be an exception, no matter how weird things got. And things were, definitely, getting weird.

It had started with copies of an illegal alchemic text turning up in a Central City auction house _and_ in five different alchemical bookshops in two different cities. Then a few more banned books showed up and someone decided that Colonel Roy Mustang and his team were the perfect candidates to get to the bottom of this little mystery. Rebecca heard that they'd tried to send the Fullmetal Alchemist to investigate, but she got conflicting reports from Havoc and Riza about what actually happened; the consensus seemed to be explosions, a metric fuckton of paperwork, and Colonel Hotass adopting a chinchilla on behalf of Alphonse Elric. After that, Riza and Havoc were put in charge of the investigation which eventually netted them a name: Oswald Chesterfield.

Chesterfield was a small time antiquities dealer slowly making a name for himself. Rebecca had it on good authority (namely, Riza and Falman's briefings) that he liked the finer things in life, but had horrible taste. He frequented trendy restaurants that closed three weeks later due to health violations, regularly attended mediocre plays starring actors no one's heard of, and bought his suits off the rack _and didn't get them tailored_.

Apparently, all of that meant The Hottest Alchemist absolutely, positively could not work this case. Colonel Tightpants was too classy and well-known or something to go undercover and investigate Chesterfield; Rebecca was pretty sure he just didn't want to be seen near Chesterfield just in case poor taste and bad judgement were catching.

Now, why _Riza_ got stuck doing the undercover work, Rebecca wasn't as clear on. Jean Havoc seemed like he'd be a better choice for this kind of thing: Riza was a real classy lady even on her worst days and Havoc, well.

Havoc thought beer and burgers at a place with table clothes was a classy date. Rebecca happened to agree with him; nothing beat a good burger and how people reacted to going out and getting burgers said an awful lot about whether they'd be worth dating or not. For the record: Riza had introduced Rebecca to the best place to get a burger, fries and a decent beer in Central. Rebecca, of course, had returned the favor when Riza and the rest of Colonel Cowboy's command got shipped out East City with the rest of the military's troublemakers, independent thinkers, cannon fodder and ragtag misfits.

Burgers and the Amestrian military's rejects aside, Riza was damn good at her job and got her hands on Chesterfield's weekly agenda. Today, she was tailing him as he ran errands and, hopefully, made contact with one the shadier book dealers in East City. The Fever You Can't Sweat Out Alchemist insisted Riza take backup, which Rebecca approved of. How this became Riza-and-Rebecca-Go-Undercover-And-Pretend-To-Be-A-Couple was a mystery. Rebecca suspected Havoc and his boyfriend had a hand in it; she didn't remember that in the briefing Breda handed her when she turned up in Colonel Flameo's office, but she'd done stranger things with Riza, and some of them had even been under orders, so. Here she was, spying on a short, overdressed man and his entourage while kissing Riza by fountains and war memorials.

It was _definitely_ a weird assignment.

***

It got weirder.

Rebecca was holding Riza's hand and window shopping while they watched Chesterfield's reflection in the glass. He was across the street at Sun Dollars, eating an overpriced pastry al fresco and writing something in a notebook Rebecca really wanted to get her hands on.

"Think that's his to-do list or little black book of illegal contacts?" Rebecca asked Riza, pulling her close to point out a cute pair of shoes. "Also, those with my polka dot dress?"

"If only he would be so kind as to hook us up with his special friends," Riza said dryly. Rebecca snickered and she caught Riza's tiny grin in their reflection.

"You're spending too much time with your boss if you're making sex jokes. Isn't that supposed to be my job?"

"Well, you go both ways and I'm...flexible," Riza said with a hand squeeze and wicked gleam in her eyes.

"You're so bad," Rebecca said with a laugh. "This is why you're my favorite forever. But seriously, the shoes, yes or no?"

"Do you have a blue purse?" Riza asked, leaning her head on Rebecca's shoulder. "I have a jacket that color and all together, it'd be a very striking combination."

"Possibly—" Rebecca started to say, but she was interrupted by a loud rumble of stone and indistinct yelling that was quickly becoming more distinct.

"AL! GET HIM!" Someone shouted from...the rooftops?

Rebecca turned to face the other side of the street properly and blinked in surprise at the figures leaping between buildings. Someone came sprinting out an alley as a giant suit of armor took a running jump off a rooftop, landing behind the runner. A small figure with bright blonde hair and a billowing red coat followed the armor and then the street exploded into stone spikes.

Rebecca wanted to join the screaming masses running away, but she was a trained soldier with a sworn duty and she had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Riza's annoyed expression solidified Rebecca's suspicions.

"That's the Fullmetal Alchemist, isn't it?"

"Yes, and we only just finished processing the paperwork from his last East City incident. I was really hoping we'd get a few days before we had to start again." Riza was glancing around the street, which currently resembled a battlefield. Cretan, if Rebecca wasn't mistaken. Aerugo was more trench warfare than the sabotage and urban destruction that characterized the Cretan conflict and Rebecca's own area expertise. She was a little impressed with how easily Fullmetal and his brother managed to destroy a street, sow chaos, and clear out civilians.

Riza swore quietly and Rebecca was immediately on guard; Riza was generally diplomatic to a fault; things had to be pretty FUBARed for her to break out her military vocabulary.

"What?" Rebecca asked warily.

"Chesterfield took off. We're going to have to get last minute reservations at Surfait to catch up with him again."

Halfway down the block, Fullmetal was tackling his target to the ground and his brother clapped, creating a giant stone hand to restrain the guy. Rebecca almost felt sorry for him, but he must have done something serious to earn Fullmetal's attention and rather impressive (if dramatic) capture.

"Is your boss going to pay for our dinner?" Rebecca asked, mentally going through her closet for something appropriate to wear to a nice dinner out.

Riza made an undignified noise and slipped her arm through Rebecca's. "No, but we should be able to file for reimbursement."

"Well.” Rebecca glanced around at the chaos surrounding them. "This wasn't quite how I planned on spending my afternoon, but I guess it's better than fighting my neighbors for a washing machine. And I guess we're going to get a nice dinner out of all this."

Riza sighed expressively, and Rebecca bit back a grin. She could guess _exactly_ what Riza was thinking, and none of it was very complimentary to the Fullmetal Alchemist or his brother. "Come on, we need to report to the Colonel. And find some reimbursement forms."

***

Somehow, Riza's boss managed to get 8pm reservations at Surfait. Rebecca was pretty impressed, actually. Chesterfield didn't always pick the lemons of the upper class lifestyle; there's no way he'd be able to wine and dine his contacts and customers if that was the case. Surfait was currently _the_ place to eat in East City and so far was managing a six week stretch with no health violations, which boded well for Rebecca's digestive system and fitness for duty.

"Do I want to know what Mustang had to do to get these reservations?"

"Well," Havoc said, glancing into the rearview mirror and giving Rebecca a shiteating grin. "The chief had to ride hard on a few people to make it happen."

"You sure he did the riding or did someone maybe ride him?"

Jean started laughing so hard that Rebecca had to take the wheel to stop them from drifting across the line. Jean got control of himself and the car again so Rebecca settled back into the passenger seat. They were currently speeding their way to Riza's apartment building, but the drive between Rebecca's place and Riza's was just long enough that Rebecca would have felt weird sitting in the back like Jean was her chauffeur or something, instead of her asshole best friend.

"Well, the chief worked his magic somehow," Jean continued like Rebecca hadn't implied an awful lot about Mustang's sex life. "Now the question is, are you gonna work your magic?"

"Chesterfield's got a reservation for 8:30, so we should have plenty of time to establish our cover and order before he shows up. If we're lucky, he's meeting with a buyer and we can bust them both. If we're not, we can just tail him and someone can keep watch overnight and we'll just try again tomorrow."

"Good to know you read your briefing, Catalina. But that's not what I'm asking about," Jean told her as he smoothly turned the car onto Riza's street. Rebecca could see Riza's building from here and figured that Riza was already waiting in the lobby, keeping an eye out for Havoc's car.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rebecca lied, smoothing the skirt of her dress and making sure her beaded purse was easily within reach.

"You're wearing red, even though it's flashier and more memorable, just because you know how good you look in it. And there's no way a neckline like that lets you wear a bra, which is stupid when you're undercover like this and I know you're armed and prepared for a fight, but it does make your breasts look amazing and we both know _Riza's_ going to know that too. We all know she's gonna be thinking about your boobs at least a little bit tonight. So tell me Rebecca: you gonna work some magic tonight or keep pining over Riza for another five years?"

"Does Kain know you pay that much attention to women?" Rebecca half-snapped. "Shit, sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I know you guys—"

Jean parked the car smoothly, leaving his hands on the wheel but turned as much as he could to meet her eyes.

"Kain knows I like _people_ ," Jean said softly. "And that I've got eyes. But he also knows he's the only one in my heart. And for fuck's sake Rebecca, my job is to observe stuff and report on it. And you're hot, yeah. But you're like my little sister—yes, even when you're older than me, fuck off. You're like my sister and you've been into Riza since I introduced you."

"Speaking of," Rebecca interrupted. "Incoming, ten seconds. We'll revisit the topic later."

Rebecca opened the passenger door and slid into the backseat next to Riza, who promptly took Rebecca's hand. Rebecca swallowed, but squeezed Riza's hand. They had to sell this fake relationship and the best way to do it was to always be in character. So Rebecca would play the besotted girlfriend and have a very nice dinner out with Riza on the military's dime.

Well, on the military's dime once they filled all the paperwork out later.

"Hey Riza? Maybe we should order chicken and skip dessert. I still have to make rent this month."

***

Rebecca was using her mashed potatoes, unidentified green vegetables in a delicious sauce, and one of her extra forks to help illustrate the final battle in the movie she'd watched over the weekend.

"And then, the main bad guy— "

"Is that the big piece of broccoli or that last chunk of your bread?"

"Huh, didn't realize there was broccoli in this," Rebecca said, studying her plate again. "And neither, I'm just illustrating the relative positions of everyone and I'm planning on using my potatoes and gravy to convey the explosion at the end—"

"Charming," Riza said dryly. "Thank you for the warning, though."

"Pfft, whatever, like I haven't seen you use Xingese takeout as a storytelling aid. Anyway, the main bad guy makes this dramatic speech— "

"Don't they always?"

"Riza, will you quit interrupting, you're ruining my story."

"You mean Michael Pond's story?"

"Riza! Shut up, you're the worst date ever." To emphasize her point and hopefully shut Riza up for a minute, Rebecca lightly kicked at Riza's ankles. That didn't work out so well, since Riza had predicted Rebecca's strategy and trapped her foot.

"Worst date ever, huh?" Riza said with a smirk, idly tracing the rim of her glass as she nudged Rebecca's foot. "I'll have to see if I can improve; shall I take you out tomorrow?"

Rebecca narrowed her eyes and kicked Riza's leg. Riza made a small, pained noise and Rebecca smirked.

"Yeah, I broke out the pointy heels for this, Are you going to let me finish my story or not?"

Rebecca didn't get a chance to finish her story because right then Chesterfield slid a folder over to his dinner companions and she knocked her water glass over. It was a prearranged signal for whichever of them had a better view of Chesterfield and his actions; it was also a great excuse to get up and walk past his table to try and get an eyeful of whatever he was doing. He might be showing off pictures of his nephew but it was much more likely that he was showing prospective clients photos of something with a dubious provenance or maybe just all together illegal.

"Oh dear, you seem to have spilled something," Riza said with faux concern. "Here, let me help you clean it up."

With that ridiculous pretense dealt with, Riza left her seat and got into a better position to keep an eye on Chesterfield's table. She pretended to mop Rebecca's spilled water up and amazingly, somehow contrived to get what was left of Rebecca's dinner spilled onto the pristine tablecloth. Maybe it wasn't contrived; Riza had managed to ruin three different sets of Rebecca's sheets over the years between spilled red wine, ice cream emergencies, and the last time Rebecca got sick and Riza made her soup.

"If you wreck my dress," Rebecca murmured into Riza's ear, "you're paying for the dry cleaning and if they can't fix it, you're buying me a new one."

"Fine, just go see what they're doing over there," Riza whispered back, then hip checked Rebecca to get her moving. Rebecca stumbled slightly, then used the momentum to get close enough to Chesterfield's table and "catch her balance" on his table.

"Oh I'm so sorry!" Rebecca said loudly. "My girlfriend is terribly clumsy and well, so am I! Say, that's a neat looking book you've got a picture of there, mister! It's an awfully complicated array and is that Xingese, oh, no my mistake, looks like Xerxesian!"

Most Xingese books on alchemy were perfectly legal in Amestris; it was the ones that were translations of old Xerxesian alchemy books that weren't. Rebecca didn't know why or even particularly care; all she knew was what she'd been briefed on. Mustang and Falman spent an hour going over what alchemical symbols to look out for and made sure she could identify the Xerxesian alphabet on sight.

Riza, of course, knew everything Rebecca knew about alchemy and this mission; much more, actually. She wasted no time getting over the table and already had a gun out and aimed at Chesterfield's head. Rebecca was impressed; Riza's dress was too sleek and fitted for her to have had it in a thigh holster so she had no idea where Riza had hidden it.

"Oswald Chesterfield, we're charging you with the distribution of illegal materials on behalf of the State and Fuhrer King Bradley—"

"Freeze, buddy," Rebecca snapped as he moved his hands towards his steak knife. She hiked her skirt up enough to reach her thigh holster and drew her own gun. "I'm authorized to shoot anyone resisting arrest and I don't aim to kill when I can make your life miserable with a non-lethal shot. You want to go to jail with a shoulder injury that'll never heal right? I can make that happen if you try anything else."

Chesterfield sneered and made a movement towards Riza; Rebecca shot his dinner plate and grinned when it shattered, sending meat juices and sauce everywhere and one shard of china fairly deep into his cheek.

"As I was saying, Mr. Chesterfield, we're arresting you on behalf of the Fuhrer and you have the right to remain silent, though I do advise you to talk with the military police once we get to East City Command. You might be able to make some kind of plea bargain with them."

Rebecca waved a waiter over while Riza informed Chesterfield of his very limited rights. One of them needed to call Colonel Matchstick and get the paperwork started. Maybe she could convince someone to get her a dessert to go while she was at it. Rebecca had been looking forward to splitting some very delicious cake with Riza while they waited for Chesterfield to do something interesting and there was no reason to miss out on it just because he was in a hurry to get arrested.

***

After all of the excitement, Rebecca settled in for a good night's sleep and a well-earned day off.

Of course, then Jean showed up at an ungodly hour, banging on her door and demanding she show up at headquarters and wasn't deterred by Rebecca's cursing or frightened off by her bed head. If he wasn't happily dating someone and basically her brother from another mother (and father, ethnicity and part of the country), she'd be tempted to date him just for that. Rebecca's hair resembled a monster if she didn't braid it before bed; she had, actually, lost things in it before. Well, okay, it was a cheap, crappy comb she'd only been using because she'd been too exhausted to think straight and pull out a real brush. But it still got lost in her hair.

Jean had to wait almost an hour before Rebecca deemed her hair suitably tamed and herself caffeinated enough to face the office. Any office, really, but definitely Jean's office. There were still bullet holes from when Riza reminded Breda that his lunch break was only an hour long. And there was a target on Mustang's door, since she couldn't shoot the windows behind him to remind him to file his paperwork correctly.

Literally the only good thing about spending the day picking up after the Chesterfield incident was that everyone associated with it was being run ragged and Jean didn't have a chance to interrogate her about Riza and how date-like their mission had been. Rebecca managed to get through the day and collapse on her couch without getting a romantic third degree, which she was going to count as a victory.

Victories deserved celebrations; Rebecca was going to get a massive amount of take out and avoid cooking for a few days. She was debating between pizza, Aerugan pasta, Xingese or those tasty, spicy wrap things from the southwest when someone knocked on her door. With a dramatic sigh, Rebecca heaved herself off the couch and stomped her way over to the door.

"What."

Riza was standing on her doorstep with a folder and a hopeful expression. Rebecca stepped back and silently let Riza enter her apartment.

"I was just going to order dinner, you want something with a lot of carbs and cheese or a lot of carbs and complex flavors?"

"Actually," Riza said, oddly hopeful. "I was hoping we could go out for dinner? I've got the reimbursement paperwork for last night's dinner, but that wasn't really dinner-dinner, so I thought maybe we could fill it out and then go out for a proper dinner?"

"Ugh, more paperwork," Rebecca said disgustedly and made a face. "I'm so sick of signing stuff, but sure, okay, let's get it out of the way unless it's going to take forever. I'm not filling out pages worth of forms in triplicate on an empty stomach, we can order food and deal with it over dinner."

"It shouldn't take too long," Riza said, placing her folder down on Rebecca's coffee table. "We don't really have to do it right now if you're hungry. It'll keep, we can just get something to eat and spend some time together."

Rebecca side eyed Riza. Riza hated paperwork, but she liked to get it done and out of the way as efficiently as possible.

"Who are you and what have you done with Riza Hawkeye," Rebecca demanded. She pointed at the Riza impersonator. "I've known Riza for years, she never lets paperwork collect dust. And just to hang out with me! We've been hanging out all week! And anyway, if the paperwork is done _then_ Riza's happy to play, we can't play if there's still work to do, you should research the people you're impersonating better."

Riza was giggling and Rebecca felt pretty smug about that. It wasn't that hard to amuse Riza or even to make her laugh, but giggling? No one made Riza giggle except for her and it usually took a lot of work.

"The paperwork really can keep," Riza told her. "I just wanted an excuse to see you."

Rebecca blinked and studied Riza. She seemed a little nervous about something, which didn't make any sense. Why would she need an excuse to hang out? And why would she be nervous about it?

"I'm nervous because I'm asking you to dinner," Riza replied and Rebecca realized she'd been thinking aloud again.

"But we get dinner all the time, Riza, what the hell?"

This time, Riza blinked at her and looked confused. Then, obviously, Riza figured something out; Rebecca could see it dawning in her expression. Rebecca was glad that one of them knew what was going on.

"Rebecca, I'm asking you out. On a date. Just to be completely clear, a romantic date. Ideally, you'll agree and this will be the first step towards becoming your long-term girlfriend."

Rebecca's jaw dropped, then she started beaming. "Excellent tactics, Hawkeye. And good planning, but I propose a counterplan: what if we skip the awkward first dates where we're figuring out how serious we are about each other and jump straight into dating?"

Riza smiled and it was like the sun dawning and all kinds of flowery stuff; then she walked right up into Rebecca's personal space and pulled her close. Riza's hands settled on Rebecca's hips her smiled turned wicked; Rebecca always knew how to follow her girlfriend's lead. She kissed Riza, burying her hands in Riza's hair. Rebecca pulled Riza's hair clip out and gently tilted Riza's head up, just enough to make it easier to ravish her mouth. They spent a few moments kissing the middle of Rebecca's living room before Riza started sliding her fingers under Rebecca's shirt and tugging her towards the couch.

With a gasp, they broke their kiss and Riza spun Rebecca around and shoved her into the couch before straddling her lap. Rebecca resettled her hands on Riza's hips and let Riza drop a quick kiss to her lips before she kissed her way across Rebecca's jaw and straight to her ear.

"We're still going out for dinner," Riza said and nipped Rebecca's earlobe.

"Got it," Rebecca gasped. "We'll keep our pants on then."

"For now," Riza agreed, kissing her way down Rebecca's neck.


End file.
